Priceless
by Maple Fay
Summary: Collaboration fic written with the lovely Tartan Robes, based on her idea. After he'd decided he won't follow Lady Mary to Haxby, Mr. Carson sits in his pantry and tries to come to terms with certain feelings. Carson/Hughes.


_**A/N:** Some time ago, the lovely and talented **Tartan Robes** sent me a WIP of hers as an incentive to write an emotionally complex, heart wrenching C/H scene. Said scene had thus been successfully written—but I couldn't get that unfinished fic out of my mind… I desperately wanted to know what happened next._

_However, Tartan Robes said she wasn't planning on continuing it: but she was kind enough to suggest I did… and this is how the following piece was born._

_I'd like to thank the author of the original idea for this story for all her kind words and inspirational messages: you rock, girl, and we must definitely do it again, soon! …and even though I'm posting this from my account, Tartan Robes deserves all the PMs of praise in the world, just so you know… Enjoy!_

* * *

He's angry and he's sad, but most of all he's feeling. He's feeling even though he's trained himself not to feel (the truly great butlers don't). He's feeling and he feels awful.

So of course she finds him; she always does.

It's past midnight, but he's still in his pantry. She doesn't knock - it's been ages since she's done that - instead the door opens carefully.

"Mr. Carson?" She says in the doorway, "Whatever are you doing up?"

He could ask her the same question, but he doesn't. He looks at her instead - her hair is down, braided, and her nightgown is on - and she looks at him and on some level they both must know. She always seems to know.

She approaches him, puts her hand on the rim of his glass. It only causes him to clutch it tighter. The wine bottle is on his desk, nearly empty.

"Come now, Mr. Carson," she says, softly, "there are better ways to nurse a heavy heart."

She knows, she must know. And I always thought you were fond of me, Lady Mary had said.

And it hurt.

Two a penny.

It had hurt more than he had known pain to feel.

Mrs. Hughes' hand is still on his glass. Mrs. Hughes, his friend. Mrs. Hughes, who has never once wished him ill, who would never wish him ill.

There have only ever been three women in his life. Downton, whom he loved as a mother would her child. Lady Mary, whom he loved as a father. And Elsie Hughes, whom he loved as –

Whom he loved.

Her fingers pry the glass from his grip and as she slides it from his hand, her fingers run over his skin.

He catches her other hand in his, feels her grow tense. She looks at him calmly, patiently, expectantly.  
"Are you fond of me, Mrs. Hughes?"

Her head tilts to the side and, for the briefest of moments, her lips purse. She must think him terribly drunk, because she indulges him, "Yes, Mr. Carson, I am very fond of you." Is she saying this because she knows he yearns to hear it? Because she pities him? This man with a bottle and splitting heart?

She must.

Still, she needs to know.

She is his constant - the constant he almost threw away - and she needs to know. There have only ever been three women. There has only ever been her.

"Because I'm very fond of you," he says.

"Are you now, Mr. Carson?" She sets the glass down on his desk, but he still holds her hand. She pats the back of his gently. She thinks him a horrible drunk and a child. She thinks him a great fool. Still, she has to understand.

He is not replaceable, he will show her that. He will prove them all that much.

"Yes," he says, staring her straight in the eye, voice even, "Terribly so."

She blinks. Something inside him snaps.

He pulls at the hand he's still holding, rather forcefully so, making her sway on her feet and fall forward with a small gasp of surprise, her free hand braced against his shoulder, her face hovering just over his, close, so close –

So he reaches up and touches her jaw (her skin is soft and cool, although it turns slightly warmer under his touch), and pulls some more.

When he kisses her, it's halfway between hope and desperation, between anger and elation. There's urgency and softness, there's a swallowed sigh and fingers clawing at clothing, strong, demanding, pushing fabric apart to touch skin—his, hers, theirs, does it even matter?

He should be more attentive. He should ask for permission. He should at the very least think about relocating them to someplace more comfortable.

He cannot be bothered by any of it now. For there she is, with him, above him, all around him, her fingers threading through his hair as he deepens the kiss, breathes in her scent, pushes away strands of her hair that tickle his neck and hooks his thumb under the fabric of her nightgown.

He cannot be bothered, but he still pulls back a little, his head spinning from intoxication that has nothing whatsoever to do with the wine, and whispers hoarsely against her neck, "You need to know that."

Her hands slip around his shoulders and she holds onto him (holds _him_) as he tastes her skin, lips and tongue and teeth, and listens to her breaths become fast and shallow.

He should be gentle, but he's feeling: and he wants her to feel, too, to drop the pretence and let her composure shatter. To know. To understand. To reciprocate.

There has only ever been her, and there will never be another, not now that he knows for sure everything he had but imagined until now.

Her hands are holding his head close to her breast, every touch a caress although he wouldn't have opposed if she tugged at his hair, made him hiss, wince, feel even more, blinded him to everything but her (because it's not only about love, it's also about hurt and denial and walls coming down as the river finally overcomes the stone and floods the valley): but she doesn't have to resort to brutality, not with him, not this night. Not any night.

And then there's more fumbling and greater urgency, and noises muffled by skin, and the sweet pain brought by her teeth sinking into his shoulder when he stretches her, stilling himself before she looks down at him and starts to move, setting the pace, turning the tables completely.

He needed her to know—but in the end, isn't it _her_ that shows _him_ what it was all about? What the most important thing is.

There has always been only this. How they fit together. How they _belong_.

When she crumbles and falls, he's there to catch her, even as he follows her.

They rest for a few moments, his hands tracing circles on the sides of her spine, and the air is heavy, poignant with scents and their mingled breaths.

And now he needs her to say something. To acknowledge everything that's happened.

Just one word, to define what it is—_how_ it is—this thing they've got.

She looks down at him through her eyelashes, brushing his neck with her fingertips, a smile he cannot quite place playing in the corner of her mouth.

"Well," she says thoughtfully, leaning back against his hands, trusting him to support her, always, "I couldn't have gotten _that_ for a penny..."

And there it is. The word.

_Priceless_.

**The End**


End file.
